


Soulmarks

by Datawolf39



Series: Soulmate AUs [1]
Category: Death in Paradise
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Bonds, Richard has self-worth issues, Romantic Bonds, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 22:03:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21186701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Datawolf39/pseuds/Datawolf39
Summary: People have soulmates, Richard doesn't want any, really he doesn't.





	1. Pity

**Author's Note:**

> Not my best work, but it was written in about five hours and some change since the idea would not leave me alone because of how much I love Soulmate AUs.

"Foolishness," Richard growled under his breath. It didn't seem that a day went by on the island without some mention of Soulmarks and just how wonderful they were. 

Today's culprit or first culprit, as the case often was, was Camille, and judging from the annoyed look on her face, he had not been quiet enough with expressing his distaste.

He clenched his fists beneath his desk, trying to convince himself that his reaction was just the result of the enamored attitude towards Soulmarks, not in any way related to the pain he could feel as color faded from his darkening Soulmarks. 

"Richard," she said, and somehow she sounded sad, despite her annoyance with him. It wasn't pity, he could detect that a mile away, people often pitied him when they saw his nearly colorless marks. He knew that darkness often meant the death of a Soulmate, and thus the pity. He hated it though, and long ago made the choice to cover the marks on his wrists, and especially the one over his heart, beneath clothing, and never let the world see them ever again. He wished he didn’t even have them, he might have been spared so much anguish if they didn’t exist.

The train of thought was dangerous, and it felt like poison drifting through his veins. He hurried to alter his thoughts, to get back to a safer topic. The pity, and the lack thereof in Camille’s expression. He knew pity well enough to know that wasn't what Camille was showing. She was genuinely sad for him, sad that whatever had happened to him made him hate something so beautiful to so many, and somehow it was even worse.

He looked away from her. She could never understand. With her arms bare most days, her colorful marks were on display so often he had memorized them. The artistic swirls of the mark that was royal purple and midnight blue, that spiraled her right wrist like a Celtic symbol. The other was in cursive-like loops on her left wrist in shades of yellow, white, and blue, like some abstract rendering of a summer sky.

He knew that she could suppress them. A skill most never learned, but vital for anyone spending any time undercover. Now that she was free of that obligation though, she wore them proudly.

Secretly, he envied that. The freedom to show her marks, to be proud of them. In his more pitiful moments he allowed himself to wonder if the mark over her heart was just as vibrant as the ones on her wrists. 

"Chief, we just got a call," Dwayne reported.

Richard swallowed, and took a breath. He put aside his personal feelings in favor of professionalism. 

When he looked up at the older man, he was still hit with the worst part of the situation. Those colorful marks on Camille, the ones he both loathed, and envied, those platonic Soulmates whose marks she wore so proudly, well they belonged to Dwayne and Fidel.


	2. Soul Sickness

Like most phenomena, Soulmarks had no explanation, but the human need to offer one had spawned theories. One was a scientific one, where the human body knew with whom bonds would be stable and lifelong, and the marks were the symbol created. 

Then there were those who placed their faith in religion, that thought that God was responsible. That the divine plan was that humans have loyal companionship throughout their lives and thus had created Soulmarks to guide them into the relationships that would be the most beneficial.

Sadly, the world was not a perfect place, and sometimes people died. The grief of losing a Soulmate, platonic or otherwise, was enough that some never recovered from it. They called it Soul Sickness, and it was an awful thing to witness. The marks were the first things to fade, and slowly, the person's health followed, until they were a shell of the person they had been, and then they simply died.

Richard had done a lot of research, for both professional, and personal reasons, about marks, and Soul Sickness, so he knew what he was looking at when they arrived on the scene. “Soul Sickness.” he said as he gazed at the body of the twenty-seven year old man. 

“The marks are still colorful,” Camille said with a frown.

“It begins at the edges,” he replied, pointing at the slightly faded mark on the left wrist of the victim. 

Camille looked closer, it was true, the mark was starting to fade at the edges, she gazed back at her boss, only to find that he had walked away, and was examining something else. She frowned. She knew he was exceptionally observant, it was one of the traits that made him very good at solving crimes but there was something awful that came to mind when she considered how quickly he had noticed that particular detail.

~

Three days. That’s how long it took for the case to conclude, and Richard looked very tired at the end of it, so none of them were surprised when he didn’t go out with them to celebrate the end of the case.

They were surprised when he didn’t show up for work the next day. “Did he call off?” Fidel wondered out loud.

“The Chief?” Dwayne asked in disbelief. The man would come to work if he was half crazy with fever, in fact he had tried once or twice, nothing short of something completely immobilizing would keep him away.

“Where there any calls?” 

Dwayne was about to report that there hadn’t been, but before he could say anything he looked up. Rough. It was the only word that came to mind when he looked at the DI.

Richard obviously hadn’t slept, his clothes looked like they had been tossed on in rush. His face was flushed, but somehow he seemed paler for it. It was amazing that he had managed to get to the station in this condition. 

Suddenly, the older man’s gaze fell to Richard wrist, where one of his sleeves was not pulled down all the way, Black. All he saw was a black mark, darker than any he had ever seen in all his life.

Richard caught his gaze, and tugged the sleeve into place, but when Dwayne glanced at Fidel, and Camille, it was clear that they had both seen it as well. 

Richard mumbled something, and walked over to his desk. None of them mentioned what they had seen, but that didn’t stop them from worrying about it.


	3. Happy

Happiness was not something that Richard felt too often. He had a good relationship with the feeling of satisfaction, but happiness was something else. Today, he was happy.

Work was over, La Kaz was relatively empty, Catherine had made him a pot of tea, and had even foregone her customary teasing at him having a hot drink in such a hot climate. Camille, Fidel, and Dwayne were joking with one another, and telling him stories from before his arrival on the island. 

When he tuned back into the conversation, Dwanye was telling the punchline of a story, “So the man is running, and he runs into the  _ police station,  _ easiest arrest ever,” he concludes.

“For you,” Fidel grumbled with a smile, “I had to chase him all over the island.” 

“It was good exercise,” Camille said patting him on the back.

Richard was enjoying himself, having fun with his co-workers in a way that he had never experienced in his homeland. So of course, that was the moment that a really bad fit hit him. He growled, but soon he was lacking the breathe to do that. He was choking, dying, he was going to lose everything.

For a mere second, he wished that they were his Soulmates. He wished he lived in a world where he was supposed to be happy. 

He opened his eyes, completely unaware that he had closed them, and found himself on the floor, no idea when that happened, the others were around him though, clearly concerned. There was happiness in that too. He had always imagined he would be alone when the Soul Sickness claimed his life.

But he was surrounded by his friends- well in the safety of his mind he could call them what they were, and that was family-. Somehow, selfishly, he wished for more time, more time to appreciate all that he had gained on this inferno of an island.

His coat was removed, and even with all the pain coursing through him, he managed to feel some shame as his shirt was removed, and his blackened marks bared. That was another reason he had failed to belong in the colorful oven that was Sainte Marie.

He raised an arm, hoping for one last physical connection before everything ended.

Fidel, lovely boy that he was, grabbed the hand, being the closest to it, and held on. 

Dwayne mirrored the action on his other side. His breathing came a bit easier. Then Camille pressed her hand over his heart, probably aiming to feel if the organ was beating or fixing to start CPR maybe? His brain wasn’t at its best, but just as the contentment settled in, he was hit with a burst of… something. He gasped, struggling against it, as it overwhelmed him, his team was the only thing keeping him afloat in that moment, and he clung as hard as he could. A starburst of light went across his vision, and with a sudden lurch, everything went dark.


	4. Chapter 4

He awoke to color. To winding bands of mesmerizing color on his wrists. To the sight of a kaleidoscopic pattern peeking from the collar of his shirt. He kept staring, unable to believe what he was looking at.

He had never heard of a cure for Soul Sickness, but they had saved him. Wait- where? Where were they? He...needed… he couldn’t…

Panic flared, his body shaking with the intensity of it. He couldn’t calm down! Dying! Had he woke up just to die?

He lost track of everything, but the painful panic, until the coolness washed over him, and he slowly felt the panic recede. “What…?” he managed before his voice failed him.

“Breathe Richard.”

He was powerless to do anything, but obey. A straw was pressed to his lips, and he took a drink of water. It was wonderful, but he forced himself to stop after a few sips not wanting to make himself sick.

Before he could ask the question again, he was getting the answers that he wanted.

“You remember being at the bar?”

He nodded.

“You passed out, and we thought… so we took off your jacket and shirt, and we saw… You nearly died from Soul Sickness,” Camille finished in a whisper.

“The doctor said she had never seen someone recover at the last stage,” Fidel said softly.

“How did I…?” he asked. Nobody needed him to finish the question to understand it.

“The doc said that you only recovered because all four of your bonds were accepted at the same time, Chief.”

“Four?”

“Two platonic, one romantic, and one parental,” Catherine answered.

He was lucky that his blush didn’t burn him to ash at that moment. Parental bonds were unique ones, they were most common in adopted children. When the child accepted the new parent, and the parent unconditionally loved the child. There were other cases too, though they were rarer. When relationships with biological parents were, to put it delicately, strained, people who became close to the person tended to fill a more parental role, and such bonds could be formed. He had never considered that he might view Catherine in a parental light, but apparently that was very much the case.

“Richard, the doctor also said something else…”

Richard looked at Camille waiting for her to continue.

“She said… that the Soul Sickness was… self-induced.”

The newly formed bond thrummed with the sadness, and he had to tell her everything. Let her know, make her understand.

“I was never social at all, before coming to Sainte Marie. I was outcasted by my peer group throughout my adolescence, and into adulthood, the only solace I could find was in my studies, which made me more of an outcast. In time I gave up on the idea of ever meeting my Soulmates. I was convinced that even if by some miracle I found them, they wouldn’t want me, not as I am, and I couldn’t face that,” He was crying now, and he rubbed the back of his hand roughly over his eyes to wipe the tears away. He swallowed, and spoke again, he needed to get all this out. “I was afraid, when we became friends. I found myself hoping, and hating that I was, because I couldn’t be that lucky, I thought I had given up and finding that I hadn’t was painful.” He gave a huff of a laugh, “Awful isn’t it? That fate bonded you all to a useless Soulmate like me?” he huffed another laugh.

“Is that what you think, Richard?” the question was rhetorical. They could all feel the honesty in his words. Bonds as strong as the ones they shared often led to empathic abilities between mates, they wouldn’t even be too surprised if, after the bonds settled, there was a low level of telepathy between them all.

There were no words for the situation, and even if there were, they wouldn’t be believed. These beliefs were deep-seated, and enforced by the people around him. So they did the only thing they could, one by one, they poured their feelings into the bond. Just a quick impression of their current states of emotion, so they didn’t overload him.

Shock, and sadness, were consistent between the impression, but so was the affection. He couldn’t help broadcasting his reaction to that, and that was yet another embarrassment. 

He found himself grateful for the wave of tiredness that came over him. They let him rest, knowing he needed it, but he knew that there would be more to discuss when he was awake again. Somehow the thought was comforting though, and he fell asleep with a gentle smile on his features.


End file.
